


Edges

by kaithartic (bluedreaming)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - City, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 14:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1607936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedreaming/pseuds/kaithartic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sehun watches Baekhyun dreaming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Edges

**Author's Note:**

> I often get ideas for poems out of thin air (well not really but my over-active brain randomly spits out stuff my subconscious has been stewing over) and this story was quite similar. The line "he dreams he's awake" and "he dreams of sleeping", along with the concept of the song and music video for Fineshrine by Purity Fing, kept running through my head while I was out running errands so I simply jumped directly onto them and ran. I've also been feeling quite guilty about not writing the promised sebaek, so that's how this happened. (I promise that I will still write the other one though!) Finally, I'm also (among other things) trying to write a fluffy story right now so I needed an outlet for my random angst and poetry thoughts.
> 
> Thank you so much to the lovely Rina who was so kind as to offer to beta this story for me: her suggestions were all incredibly helpful and any mistakes/inconsistencies are my sole failing and are in no way her responsibility. I apologize profusely for everything.

It's been thirty days, ten hours, forty-seven minutes and eleven seconds since he's seen the colour of Baekhyun's eyes. Thirty days, ten hours, forty-seven minutes and three seconds since he's heard the sound of his voice. Thirty days, ten hours, forty-six minutes and nine seconds since he's held his hand and felt it being held back. Thirty days, ten hours, forty-five minutes and seventeen seconds since he last spoke to his boyfriend and knew that he could hear him.

Sehun sits at the side of a hospital bed, hands clasped around long pale fingers. Baekhyun is too pale these days, his skin blending in with the white bed sheets until Sehun is afraid he'll melt away. His fingers grasp tighter, reflexively, at the thought.

_I really miss you. I miss talking with you. I miss laughing with you. I miss complaining about homework and playing video games and stumbling home drunk before dawn, arm wrapped around your warm shoulder. I miss your laugh and your smile and your eyes and the shadow of your eyelashes on your cheek as you blink that makes me think of butterflies._

Sehun's voice is caught in his throat, emotions clawing painfully in their struggle to get out. Instead of the elegy running through his brain, he only whispers.

"When I see butterflies, I remember you."

####  _There is a boy and there are butterflies. The butterflies drift about the sky in a slow waltz, their wings painting pictures in the air as they move in shifting veils and land lightly to sip nectar from the flowers. The boy is alone. He walks amidst the riot of colour, but for some reason he is sad. Why is he sad? He doesn't know: his thoughts don't go in that direction, only leading his feet down a path that has suddenly appeared to wind between the trees that have grown out of the the flowers that the butterflies anointed with their sweet kisses. There is a deer in the forest, light-speckled by the whispering green foliage overhead. The boy reaches out, longingly, but the deer only looks at him for a long silent moment before moving off deeper into the underbrush. The boy tries to follow, but he's soon tangled in the thorns that now stretch from tree to tree to block the way. He cries instead, but doesn't know why he is crying._

It's been sixty-two days, nine hours, twenty-six minutes and fifty-nine seconds since he's seen the colour of Baekhyun's eyes.

Sehun sits by the hospital bed, his hands wrapped around his boyfriend's cold fingers. He rubs them between his palms, trying to warm them a little, but nothing seems to work.

_I really miss you. I miss everything about you. I miss walking with you home from school, I miss picnics in the park, I miss you beating me up to prove you do remember your hapkido, I miss you kissing the bruises better in bed later that night, I miss the feeling of your mouth touching my skin. I miss kissing you. I miss the feeling of electricity running down my spine. I miss you touching me._

Sehun's eyes are blinded with tears and he can't see anything, but the cold fingers wrapped in his hands are still reassuringly solid.

"When I feel hurt, I remember you making it better."

####  _There is a boy and there is pain. There is lighting and thunder and water pooling in his eyes and mouth and nose, choking him. There is sharp metal and glass piercing his side and his back and his neck, flecks of pain dusting his skin as he writhes in silent agony. There is red, bright and startling against white leather seats. The boy screams loudly, unleashed voice bubbling up crimson on pale lips. He controls his thrashing limbs, pushing through knives and thorns to fall out, sprawled on the limp grass in the dark. He does not look back, but only crawls forward, gasping, his passage through the field marked by crushed grass and wetter, darker things. There is a river, running fast. There is a hill. The boy freezes in alarm but momentum already has his battered, broken body tight in its unmercifully indifferent grasp and he is thrown into the raging stream, frantically flailing his arms in a desperate attempt to keep his head above water. But the river is cold. His limbs, despite the energy they are exerting, grow numb and slow and he sinks, eyes wide open staring towards the dark sky. The boy sinks. There are bubbles trailing back up to the stars but his eyes are dark and he can't see them._

It's been ninety-five days, eleven hours, fifteen minutes and thirty-two seconds since he's seen the colour of Baekhyun's eyes.

Sehun leans on the hospital bed, elbows propped up on the white sheets, hands wrapped around Baekhyun's fingers and his face nestled against the soft skin of the hand. He breathes in the scent of his boyfriend but what was once the rich mystery of jasmine is now disinfectant, sadness, and the cruel metallic under-notes of more painful things.

_I really miss you. I miss the smell of your hair, fresh from the bath, all jasmine and cinnamon and spice as you let me nuzzle my head against your collarbone after a long day at school. I miss tracing my finger along the nape of your neck, dipping down to graze the notches of your spine, watching you shiver into my arms. I miss tickling you. I miss you tickling me as I would try to squirm out of your grasp, tripping over the trailing corner of the rug in the hall that you never bothered to change. I miss hugging you. I miss the warm feeling of safety in your arms. I miss you telling me everything is going to be okay._

There's a wet spot on the sheets. Sehun's face is wet, eyes shiny with broken promises.

"When everything falls apart, I remember you telling me it was all going to be okay."

####  _There is a boy. There is sunshine. There is light falling on the water, filtering between green leaves that dance in the wind. There is the sound of birds singing. There is warmth in the air. There are butterflies. The boy stands beside the water. The waves lap gently against the rocks on the shore. There are hummingbirds buzzing in the bushes behind him. There are bushes behind him; their small white flowers releasing the most exquisite scent of happiness into the thick golden air. There is a boat floating on the water, wooden side gently bumping against the shore with a soft thump, thump. There is a comfortably-aged pier, honey wood glowing in the sun, to which the boat is tied up. The boy steps forward, dainty feet lowered down into the boat one by one, before he sits on the wide bench, surface smoothed silk-soft by decades of use. The boat is larger from the inside than the outside. It's empty. He leans down and picks up the oars lying by his feet. He hardly has to dip his oars into the water; the slow current carries him forward, stern leaving a smooth wave in the still water. The water is as quiet as glass. He can see his reflection cast upon the blue water. His eyes catch his attention. His eyes._

It's been two hundred and twenty-seven days, nine hours, twelve minutes and ten seconds since he's seen the colour of Baekhyun's eyes.

Sehun stands at the window, looking out at the rain falling softly on the blooming trees outside. The raindrops on the window cast the shadow of water tracks on his face. He turns to look at the diminished figure of his boyfriend, pale skin ghosting into the white sheets. The rain is casting the shadow of a waterfall on him too. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend that Baekhyun is just sleeping. The faint sound of the respirator, in, out, in, out, blends in with the falling rain.

_I really miss you. I miss walking with you in the rain, laughing because we forgot our umbrella but dancing around raindrops anyway, feet soaked and water trickling into our eyes, the warm explosion as our lips met. I miss walking home, sad because I aced the class but didn't get the scholarship, kicking water out of puddles in long messy sprays to soak my skin but knowing that you'd be there to open the door and enfold me in a painfully tight embrace. I miss drinking our sadness away, slumped afterwards against the sofa, bottles and wrappers scattered in chaotic disarray as we slept, your head nestled on my shoulder, our heartbeats meeting. I miss waking up with a hangover, the smell of your seaweed soup, the mess we made in the kitchen doing the washing up, the soap bubbles smeared across your cheeks, the bitter taste as I kissed your face clean. I miss your fingers trailing across my cheek, your eyes fixed on mine, our souls meeting and joining over and over again._

The slumped form of a broken boy is leaning against a glass window as the rain falls outside in a steady stream of grief.

"When is rains, when it's sunny, when it storms, when the sky is clear, I remember you.

####  _There is a boy. There is a boy in a boat gently drifting along a river under an arched canopy of trees that whisper secrets overhead to the birds and the sky. Birds spot the sky, dipping, swirling, crying out their joy of freedom and flying and cutting the air apart with their strong wings. There are clouds in the sky, drawing patterns with their fluffy bulk, cryptic stories meant only for the stars. The boy sits in the boat, fingers idly skimming the silky surface of the water as he gazes ahead. There is the sound of something approaching. The boy looks up. The trees are thinning out, only large brave ones standing their ground. There is a growing roar. There are birds, dipping and dancing through the sky, disappearing below the rapidly approaching horizon. The boy stands up. There is a waterfall. The boy's eyes widen in surprise, mirroring the mist drifting across the water from the collision of the falling rapids with the lake below. There is steam. There is screaming. There is smoke. There is an absence of sound as the small boat tips over the edge of the world, as the car makes a ruthless leap off the bridge into the abyss of space. There is flying, there is a small form being thrown out of a boat, out of a car, glass shards dipped in scarlet trailing behind like petals floating through time, floating on the surface of the water. There is a soft voice, there is the feeling of a hand being torn from a knuckle-tight grasp, fingers cracking, there are words stuck in a slashed throat, bubbling out despite the pain, the soft thump of eyelids closing. There is darkness._

It's been three hundred and eighty-two days, ten hours, fifty nine minutes and fifty-eight seconds since he's seen the colour of Baekhyun's eyes.

Sehun sits, slumped, on a chair beside the hospital bed, fingers meshed around the limp shape of his boyfriend's slim hand. The rasping sound of the respirator, in, out, in, out, as the bony chest rises, falls, rises, falls, is joined by the dull beeping of a green line. Still alive, still alive, still alive, still alive. His chin sinks into his chest as he curls into himself, searching for a warmth that has been missing for so long.

_I really miss you. I miss hearing you breathe. I miss the warm air of your breath dancing over my cheek as we lay, side-by-side in the dark, watching the sky stretched out like a banner of stars overhead. I miss tangling my hands in yours as we danced in the night, twirling under the trailing light of fireworks which split the sky into ten thousand tiny blooms of fire. I miss seeing the stars, the sky, your dreams, my face reflected in your deep eyes that I wouldn't drown in but instead swim, the warm water filling the dips and cracks in my thirsty heart. I miss skinny-dipping with you after sunset, your shrill shrieks colouring the night as we'd throw water through the air to splash each other in cold shock, raising trails of goose-bumps which would only have to be kissed away in bed later, tangled up in the sticky sheets._

Sehun lets his eyes drift across the still form of his boyfriend yet again, gaze lingering hopefully on eyes that remain shut.

"When I look at myself in the mirror, I remember you."

####  _There is darkness. There is a boy. There is a body. There are arms, legs, fingers, toes. There are knees, elbows, shoulders, collar bones. There is a ribcage, a neck, a chin, a face, a nose, a mouth. There are teeth, ears, lips, eyes, eyelids. There are eyelashes like fringes of lace across fluttering lids. There is the ghost of a breath over a silky cheek. The boy opens his eyes._

**Author's Note:**

> The concept of watching someone sleep and also a dream-reality was very loosely inspired by the song Fineshrine by Purity Ring ([lyrics](http://rock.rapgenius.com/Purity-ring-fineshrine-lyrics), [music video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqw4wo8vdY8&feature=kp)). I looked up the phrase "he dreams he's awake" and it's apparently a song by Stars ([lyrics](http://rock.rapgenius.com/Stars-canadian-band-he-dreams-hes-awake-lyrics), [song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDh3lPTeMms)) which I'm pretty sure I've never listened to before, but I've probably heard the title somewhere so that's where that's from. I can't trace "he dreams of sleeping" but it might be from a poem or story I've read in the past? I'm sorry, my memory is a sieve.


End file.
